Job Hunting

Currently I am job hunting. My goal right now is to find an inpatient RN new grad job at a major teaching hospital. I prefer working with surgical patients, but I am mostly applying to medical floors because I think that experience with medical patients will be more important for my future career as a family nurse practitioner. To my surprise, I have found that I actually enjoy working inpatient. Before I started school, I have to admit that I expected the RN portion of school to be a joke and my time inpatient to be hellish, full of wiping butts and bed baths.

Yes, they are a part of it, but I don't mind. The rest of it is very fulfilling. More so than I thought. My ego aches every time I see an intern or resident my age rounding on my patients. That could have been me. (This is why parents it's important to have kids get a comprehensive evaluation if they are struggling as kids, even if not academically struggling. My parents had me go to a child psychologist, didn't help the cause, although I did have someone to play with. My problems weren't with depression or anxiety, they were due to a learning difference. Please get a neuropsych evaluation, especially if there is nothing traumatic in the history.)

My hunt is disheartening. The students ahead of us passed the word on that it was very tough to find a job; I didn't quite believe them. But now that I am hunting, I am finding it to be true. Why would a hospital be interested in us? Spend three to four months training us and then we work part time for 9 months and we are gone.

I applied for a job today with the proviso that I will work full time for at least a year. It seems to be the only way for me to get the experience that I want. Once you have that year or two of inpatient experience behind you, doors open. And, I really do want to feel competent as an inpatient nurse. At my old job, I felt as if I were posing; I could present very well, but felt I never produced well. I want to know how to respond automatically in an emergency and be able to tell the difference just by looking between someone who is "sick" and someone who is sick.


Nota bene: No one believes me today when I say that I struggled socially as a kid; we learn to compensate. Thank goodness, a lot of us socially awkward kids grow out of it.